Society

If there is one thing that Theresa May cannot be accused of it is being decisive.  Her entire – hopefully short-lived – premiership will be defined by indecision and prevarication:  The ill-fated general election that she vowed more than twenty times would never be called; the horrific Universal Credit rollout …

Management guru Anthony Stafford Beer famously argued that “the purpose of a system is what it does.”  While this sounds like a tautology, what he meant was that we should judge organisations by the results of their behaviour rather than the purpose stated in their PR materials: “There is after …

While the government attempts to microwave its cold war with Russia, a more menacing adversary may have already breached the national firewalls.  I speak, of course, of the other emerging power in the new tri-polar world: China. In many ways, the new Chinese imperialism is very similar to the nineteenth …

It used to be that if you wanted to hear conspiracy theories you would tune into Alex Jones or the alien abduction channels in the far recesses of YouTube.  These days, however, you need only watch/listen to the BBC uncritically trotting out the latest conspiracy theories concerning Jeremy Corbyn, Syrian …

Believe it or not, EU leaders were attempting to bolster Theresa May’s position ahead of what is likely to be an unpleasant Tory conference ten days from now.    EU negotiator Michel Barnier had unexpectedly indicated that the so-called “Chequers proposal” provided the basis for a future Brexit deal.  Crucially, however, …

Labour MP Lucy Powell’s Ten Minute Rule Bill to be presented to Parliament today has all of the hallmarks of the good intentions that pave the road that leads to you know where.  At face value, it is packed with banal measures aimed at tackling one of the thorniest issues …

Given the current fashion for hurling the words “fascist” and “Nazi” at anyone we happen to disagree with, it is worth remembering that the Nazis were elected to government (as the largest party) in 1932.  Not that they would not have seized power by other means in future if need …

There were two messages on the back of Melania Trump’s now famous jacket (no, one of them was not an Italian fascist slogan).  The first was the one aimed at the US media – “I really don’t care; do U?”  That is, in the age of 24 hour news and …

Public relations firm WPP is in the news today because of a shareholder revolt over the resignation of former CEO Martin Sorrell: “Almost a third of shareholders did not back the company’s pay and bonus scheme and almost 17% did not support the re-election of chairman Roberto Quarta. “Shareholders have …

As an exercise in creating unnecessary constitutional crises, Brexit is turning out to be a humdinger.  The underlying reason for this is that at no stage in the process has any decision in the chain been about Britain’s relationship with the European Union: The decision to include the promise of …